When it was revealed last Friday night that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was about to begin making arrests in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal: one key detail stood out: Jared Kushner was secretly out of the country. No one knows what he was in Saudi Arabia for, and Trump’s White House still refuses to explain it, but in any case Kushner returned home and he was not among those arrested. However, Saudi Arabia has suddenly plunged into a state of chaos with major arrests and a potential regime change underway, raising questions about just what Kushner was doing over there – and what Donald Trump was tweeting about this morning.

This evening the royal family of Saudi Arabia arrested one of its own most powerful members, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a multibillionaire international investor, according to a CNBC report (link). Others have also been arrested and/or ousted from the government. This is being officially referred to as a corruption crackdown, but in authoritarian regimes, that’s often code for an attempted regime change. Then there’s Jared Kushner.

We do know that Kushner has long been tasked with the vague goal of establishing Middle East peace for the Donald Trump administration, though he has no skills to make that happen, and there has never been any evidence that he has any real strategy or plan. His recent trip to Saudi Arabia, and the White House’s insistence on keeping the details of the trip a secret, strongly suggest that it was not an above-board trip. Then this morning Donald Trump tweeted this: “Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!” Then the New York Times (link) revealed a new deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

So now we have Jared Kushner taking a secret trip to Saudi Arabia with a secret mission, then Donald Trump suddenly and publicly courts Saudi Arabian business, then a few hours later Saudi Arabia and Russia strike a deal, and a few hours after that, members of the Saudi Arabian royal family no appear to be trying to oust each other in a power struggle that could lead to regime change. What the heck is going on?